Wednesday, 21 May 2014

Jungle - Time

This morning we featured George Ezra, one act who has been doing rather well this year since his inclusion on lots of end of 2013 tip lists, including ours. George is ramping things up as his debut album gets closer and we're looking forward to hearing the results of his labor in full soon.Here’s another of those acts that appeared on plenty of the lists, although bizarrely despite being covered by an awful lot of music blogger types last year they didn't make the Blog Sound of 2014 list, which we thought was odd. They are the mighty XL recording artists Jungle and this is their new song Time. The buzz that Jungle started last year certainly hasn’t stopped; their gig we witnessed at Village Underground in London earlier this year was about as vibey as it gets, the audience together as one on some big soulful trippy dance vibe and we hear reports that their gig at this year’s Great Escape at The Haunt had people queuing round the block to get in from way early.We’re noticing that quite a few d-i-y blogs and even pro websites are still referring to Jungle as 'mystery artists', which seems pretty lazy considering the information is all over the internet - just one or two simple Google searches (or maybe even a Twitter search) will reveal that the main founders 'T' and 'J' of Jungle are ex Born Blonde members Tom McFarland and Joshua Lloyd-Watson. Now you know that google them for more information and have a giggle at their rather cringe worthy childhood interview with the Guardian about their parents from a few years ago. No wonder they were trying to keep their identities hidden.So to the song; Time continues where Jungle left off with Busy Earnin’. It’s the sound of a hot city night where the stereo plays fresh soul and funk the whole way through, shooting electro shocks from the brain to the feet leaving you no option but to dance as the boy-boy high-low harmonies ring out. If you love what they’ve done so far you’ll love this as well. But that may also be the problem. Because with a self-titled album due mid-July the big burning question remains. As groovy as their shows are, as irresistible as these tracks seem as singles, will the album just be a one trick pony? Time will tell (see what we did there?)Jungle - Time